Thursday, April 2, 2009

Marketing research has discovered that it takes about 7 times of contact with a new prospect for them to even know we exist. This obviously doesn't mean harassing them to the point of them not wanting to hear from you again. But it does mean you need to have a way to continue making them aware of you, your products, and your business.

In another article I've addressed the kinds of frequent contacts that are most effective and really do the job. Here I want to discuss the "mechanics of staying in touch. " This is the secret of automation! It is closely related to your advertising and generating a steady flow of qualified leads and prospects.

You want to put your entire lead generation, advertising, and sales and marketing on automatic pilot. That way it just happens without you having to continually think about it, except to make it better! Now you must continually think about it, but not whether or not it's happening.

The more you automate, with the RIGHT information and with the RIGHT messages, the quicker your business will grow.

In previous business venture of mine I was providing training workshops for educators and corporations. I am also the author a number of books dealing with effective learning technology - how people learn and how we can help them learn better. Following is a brief description of the automated process I put together to help prospects, who were somewhat interested my topic.

I first of all wanted them learn more about me and my background, the materials I had produced, and my my training and consulting services. The goal of the entire system was to bring to me highly qualified people who were ready to buy.

I had a website which automatically invited people to listen to a free online audio recording about my topic and to subscribe to my monthly newsletter. The audio talked about a free 8-session course where they could learn how to apply some of the new learning techniques I had developed.

* The newsletter was sent to all subscribers automatically each month. When I had time, I would write a bunch of articles for the newsletter and set them up to go out automatically at the appropriate time of each month. One time I had an entire year's worth of newsletters in a queue to go out, all automatically!

* When someone signed up for the 8-session course, they were automatically enrolled in a series of e-mails which were automatically delivered to them at the proper intervals and times.

* The last e-mail in the series invited them to download an eBook for more detailed information. The cost of the eBook was $14.95. Their credit card was automatically charged and the eBook was automatically delivered to them.

* After a few days they received the eBook, a questionnaire asking them for their feedback and inviting them to select other topics they would be interested in; you guessed it, automatically.

* When they chose a topic, they were automatically sent a free article about that topic as well as provided an opportunity to purchase a book, DVD, manual, audio recording, or tele-seminar with more detailed and in-depth information on the topic.

* When they ordered any of my books, DVDs, self study courses I had created, I was never directly involved. It all happened through my automated system, including the actual shipping of physical products to them.

After each step they took, such as signing up for the newsletters, or the 8-session course, a thank you was automatically sent to them for whatever they had ordered.

You see, the whole point of all of this was to get a prospect to take themselves deeper and deeper into my material and to the possibility of them hiring me to provide a workshop. Never once did I have to twist someone's arm to purchase one of my products. I have had to try to convince people to hire me. Nor did I have to send out hundreds of e-mails and keep track of who should be getting what and when. The automated system did it all!!

Until they called me, I let the automated system move them through my sales and marketing process, sorting and qualifying them, so when they actually called me I was talking to people who were ready to set up dates for their workshop. The automation of everything you can is a huge secret to your success.

Meet David Lazear, author, trainer, and success business coach. David provides training seminars and workshops for corporations and educators. His coaching services involve working with home business owners and people looking for work from home opportunities.

David's publications include 14 books dealing with practical applications of cutting-edge teaching and learning techniques, numerous articles on effective business strategies, and a series of popular "self-study courses" on such topics as Sales and Marketing, Customer Service, Being an Effective Leader, and Teaching and Learning.